Invisible Belonging: Anglo-Indian Identity in Multicultural Toronto

Abstract

This paper brings together debates on the city as a cosmopolitan and multicultural space and the ways in which invisible communities, such as the Anglo-Indian negotiate their sense of belonging. Drawing on interviews with members of the community living in Toronto, this paper explores how a sense of belonging is expressed in cosmopolitan/multicultural contexts. Besides analysing narratives of belonging located in these different urban contexts, the paper also focuses on the Seventh World Anglo-Indian Reunion in Toronto to draw on both the ‘being’ and the ‘longing’ aspect of belonging and to analyse this community event as a means of expressing both a nostalgia for Calcutta as well as a wish to be considered a part of multicultural Toronto and Canada.

Keywords:

• Anglo-Indian
• Toronto
• Invisibility
• Multiculturalism
• Belonging

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Sumita Ghosh and Michele Lobo for their editorial assistance and helpful suggestions. The paper has benefitted greatly from the comments of two reviewers. My Ph.D. research, on which this paper is based, was funded by The Leverhulme Trust and Queen Mary University of London, as part of the wider project on ‘Diaspora Cities: imagining Calcutta in London, Toronto and Jerusalem’. I would also like to thank Alison Blunt, Noah-Hysler Rubin and Shompa Lahiri for their support in my research.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jayani Bonnerjee

Jayani Bonnerjee is postdoctoral research fellow at Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi, India. She completed her Ph.D. at Queen Mary, University of London on Calcutta's Anglo-Indian and Chinese communities as part of the Leverhulme Trust funded ‘Diaspora Cities’ project. She has wider research interests in postcolonial urbanism in Asia and critical geographies of diaspora